[fingertipsmusic] This Week's Finds: June 21 (Pure Bathing Culture, Dark for Dark, EP's Trailer Park)

From: Jeremy Schlosberg <fingertipsmusic@xxxxxxxxx>
To: fingertipsmusic@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Fri, 21 Jun 2013 10:20:13 -0400

*THIS WEEK'S FINDS <http://www.fingertipsmusic.com>*
*June 21*
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[image: Pure Bathing
Culture]<http://www.fingertipsmusic.com/wp-content/uploads/pbc13.jpg>
“PENDULUM” – PURE BATHING
CULTURE<https://s3.amazonaws.com/fingertips-free-legal-mp3s/2013/Pure_Bathing_Culture-Pendulum.mp3>

Immediately warm and welcoming, “Pendulum” punctuates its laid-back opening
groove with a concise guitar riff—but only twice. It’s a sturdy,
time-honored three-chord descent, the kind of riff with which a typical
rock band might pound you into submission. Here, then, is a crafty duo from
Portland—Daniel Hindman on guitar, Sarah Versprille on keys and vocals—that
appears to understand the power of restraint; they use the riff only in the
intro and in the chorus and each time we hear it repeated just the two
times. Instead of walloping you with it, they caress you.

And then there’s the matter of singer Versprille, and the sweet vigor with
which she sings. Even through a smeary blanket of reverb, her voice has a
cloudless purity. It too feels like a kind of caress. Oh, and when we only
heard the riff twice in the introduction, it was followed by an ancillary
instrumental melody gliding gracefully down and partially back up a full
octave. That turns out to be the climactic melody line in the chorus, and
as in the intro, it follows those two iterations of the riff; but see here
how the riff now weaves itself artfully below the emphatic melody line. The
entire song, upon repeated listens, feels like one grand and artful weave,
and Hindman’s guitar lines turn out to be just as much the cause of delight
as his band mate’s vocals.

“Pendulum” is a song from the duo’s full-length debut, *Moon Tides*, due to
arrive in August onPartisan Records <http://www.partisanrecords.com/>. The
pair previously released a four-song EP in 2012, and was featured here for
the song “Ivory Coast” last May <http://www.fingertipsmusic.com/?p=11524>.
Thanks to Lauren Laverne <http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/laurenlaverne/> over
at BBC Radio 6 Music for the head’s up.

[image: Dark for
Dark]<http://www.fingertipsmusic.com/wp-content/uploads/darkfordark.jpg>
“SWEETWATER” – DARK FOR
DARK<http://pigeonrow.com/songs/DarkForDarkSweetwater.mp3>

Lap steel, banjo, and tenor guitar: this here is a country song. Sort of.
The instrumentation suggests it, but as soon as Rebecca Zolkower opens her
mouth, the song veers in a somewhat different direction. Zolkower sings
with the unadorned charm of a dorm-room folksinger; for me, her plain and
pretty tone brings Suzzy Roche to mind, a connection reinforced by the
band’s composition—Dark for Dark features three women, and three female
voices in confident and determined harmony with one another.

“Sweetwater” is upbeat yet melancholy, with brisk, poetic verses and a
power cemented by an ear-grabbing chorus, in which, first, a jaunty melody
(tracing a B major chord in a I-V-III pattern) is matched to what may be
our language’s most desolate phrase (“And when I die”). But then: both the
lyrics and melody slide almost out of hearing, and background singers Jess
Lewis and Mel Stone proceed to echo words we didn’t quite hear when
Zolkower first sang them. It’s an odd but engaging few moments. The front
woman comes back to the foreground on the last phrase (“in the ground”) in
a catching-up-from-behind manner that provides almost as endearing a
closure as the follow-up surely does: the wordless “bah-bah” exchange
between lead and backup singers through one more melodic run-through of the
chorus, minus the elusive sections.

And, as often happens here, reading about it is more complicated than
listening to it. Hell, the song is only two minutes twenty-eight seconds. I
suggest listening.

Dark for Dark was founded in 2012, but all three members are veterans of
the Halifax music scene, and Zolkower and Stone were previously together in
the band The Prospector’s Union. Zolkower got the name for the band while
reading *The Hobbit* a few years ago, and kind of laughs now at how
inapposite the name is for the kind of lovely music the eventual band
eventually created. “Sweetwater” is the second track on the group’s debut
album, *Warboats*, which was self-released last month. You can listen to
the whole thing, and purchase it, via
Bandcamp<http://darkfordark.bandcamp.com/album/warboats>
.

[image: EP's Trailer
Park]<http://www.fingertipsmusic.com/wp-content/uploads/epstp.jpg>
“CYNICAL LOVER” – EP’S TRAILER
PARK<https://s3.amazonaws.com/fingertips-free-legal-mp3s/2013/Ep%27s_Trailer_Park-Cynical_Lover.mp3>

An easy-going sing-along with the air of the ’70s about it. And no banjo or
pedal steel at all, as those instruments were banned before the recording
started. It was one of 12 “dogmatic rules” the band posted in advance, and
apparently obeyed. The list is too good not to reproduce here:

1. A ban on all things Beatles
2. A ban on Pedal steel, banjo and mandolin
3. Vocals is the finest instrument
4. No alcohol or sweets in the studio
5. Acoustic instruments should go before electric
6. No guest singers or duets
7. The drums should sound like drums
8. The vocals will be sung shirtless
9. The coffee should be taken on Mellqvists and lunch at Rosen
10. Short songs should go before long songs
11. Beautiful is good
12. At least one murder ballad

An airy, agile flute line sets the tone early here, launching “Cynical
Lover” into a partly-sunny haze of nostalgic piano chords, swaying
melodies, and rich harmonies. Front man Eric Palmqwist sings with a fragile
kind of assertiveness (I hear Rick Danko in this somewhere), and while his
unschooled tenor is not the kind of voice one expects to hearing backed by
close, invigorating harmonies, it all seems to work, and definitely urges
all but the most impassive listeners to join in on the chorus.

Palmqwist started up EP’s Trailer Park in 1999 after his previous band,
Monostar, called it quits. This new effort was designed as a kind of
revolving-door ensemble, with a variety of musicians passing through the
“trailer park” over the years, including Tobias Fröberg (previously
featured here <http://www.fingertipsmusic.com/?p=146>) and Björn Yttling
from Peter, Bjorn & John. Two of Palmqwist’s three sidemen this time around
remain from the last EP’s Trailer Park album, in 2010. “Cynical Lover” is
from the outfit’s fourth album, which is self-titled, and was released in
Sweden at the beginning of the year; the song was released as a single last
month. You can listen to the full album on
SoundCloud<https://soundcloud.com/despotz/sets/eps-trailer-park-eps-trailer/s-KZWJi>
.

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[fingertipsmusic] This Week's Finds: June 21 (Pure Bathing Culture, Dark for Dark, EP's Trailer Park)

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